


I would starve myself of the world

by labocat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Non-Consensual Face Licking, Other, Sex with terrifying monster partner uncovers kinks the human didn't know they had, Xeno, abstract descriptions of sex, light body horror, prequel to season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-06 22:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20299186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: There are many things Jon needs to learn, to know, to choose before he can become the Archivist. Everything he needs he will find within the dreamspace.





	I would starve myself of the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/gifts).

Jon is dreaming. Part of him knows this, the same way that he knew how to retreat into himself as the explosion hit. But the rest of him drifts in that half-aware state, sure that everything is real and relevant and important.

He sees flickers of other lives, of statements. He’d read them once, he recognizes, had sunk into their words until they became a part of him. He hadn’t realized it at the time, filing them away in his brain as surely as he had in a physical cabinet. But they’re here now, too caught up in their own stories to notice him. 

Something else does, though. He can sense the Eye above him, knows every time he blinks the sky does as well. Each time he watches a statement play out in front of him, he can feel his timing and its move infinitesimally closer together. It seems to be the only thing aware of him, at least until the fifth time through.

It’s at that point that the statements sink in. It’s at that point that he not only knows their words, knows the tremor of their voices as they tell their stories, but starts to feel inklings of their fears. He starts to know what it was like to _be_ them in that moment, the moment of not just the telling, but the living of it. With each repetition, the fears sink their hooks into him further, tugging him closer to a choice he never wanted to make.

He dreams, eyes flicking to and fro, of the Anglerfish, luring him in. He dreams of being hesitant but giving in, letting its tendrils wrap around him. As he does so, he knows what it would be like. None of the statement givers do, having turned away even before the threshold, but here in this limnal space, as the shadows curl around him, in him, through him, puppeting him, he _knows_. 

After that it comes more easily, crossing from a faded statement to the knowledge of what would have happened had they taken one step more, let their mind drift a little further, just let go. He knows what it is like to give in to the ecstasy of feeling his lungs filled with dirt, of being pressed in on all sides and encompassed entirely. He knows that he is only made of meat, muscles made to be manipulated, and oh, how they are manipulated. There is no one to hear his voice cry out as he gives in, lets his body become nothing more than a sack of flesh and base desires. He feels a thousand things burrow their way into his body, changing him, remaking him to suit their needs and growing strong within him. He knows he is a part of them now, even as he can feel them skitter across his skin. 

He is full: of knowledge, of fear, of appendages and shadows and things have no place in the reality he knew but he is coming to crave here. He hovers on the knife’s edge between fear and desire. He wants to know more, _needs_ to know more, but knows just as keenly that to continue to know will be his downfall. The more he knows the easier the next is, the easier it is to slip from statement to beyond, to experiencing what they lost out on. He is enraptured, and so he does not hesitate to open the yellow door when it presents itself to him.

Jon does not know what he was expecting, but most of him is not surprised when the shape of what appears is most like Michael. Even though he knows the Door has shifted to Helen, knows that Michael was nowhere near the first shape approximated by it, he can’t deny it is the shape he most identifies with it. He never met Gertrude’s assistants, only knows what Michael should have looked like off of his voice and old administration photos, but he’s sure it was nothing like this. What stands before him, unfolding itself out of the darkness of the doorway, has been distorted by a thousand mirrors, and a hundred more each time he looks somewhere new. Its shape is shifting, fluctuating with each breath it surely doesn’t have to actually take. If he thought it had looked elongated in his memories, it is nothing compared to now, to the way his mind tries to convince him that its arm is both too long and too short at the same time. 

“Hello, Archivist.” It’s always addressed him like that, like Archivist was a title, rather than just a profession. He wonders if they were always destined to end up here, like this.

“Are you still Michael, then?”

“Right to the point, aren’t we? You never were good at pleasantries.” Jon remembers its voice being more distorted, but perhaps now that he has heard the source, he can hear what became of Gertrude’s Michael, stretched thin to the point of breaking, then bent out of shape. 

“Why don’t I know?” He suspects it because he hasn’t chosen, quite yet, what to do with the knowledge that lingers at the edge of his perception in this space, the knowledge of what he’ll have to do to stop dreaming and start knowing for real. 

“Oh, Archivist. Surely you don’t think I’m something you can put in a box and label, categorize and dismiss like all the others?” It laughs, that high, strained giggle that instead of setting Jon’s nerves on edge like it used to, strangely calms him.

“Why aren’t you Helen?” 

“This is _your_ mind, Archivist. You tell me. Though I suspect it has something to do with your pointless attempts at connection and categorization.” It gives the impression of checking its fingers, checking its limbs to make sure they are all there, that there are four of them, though where those four go is less important. 

Jon knows it’s right, that he doesn’t want to accept Helen as the new Door, as that means accepting that she can never be recovered, which bodes ill for his own path, or any of theirs, really. 

“Why are you able to talk to me? None of the rest were.” He shivers slightly as he remembers all the things that happened in lieu of conversation, all of the ways his body had spoken for him, all the ways he had cried out wordlessly.

“Again, _your_ mind. Perhaps you should take time to talk to more of us — you might find you have more entertaining dreams. It seems a bit late for that now, and your mind is telling you you’re already behind schedule on what was supposed to happen. We wouldn’t want to disappoint, now would we?”

Jon, irrationally, blushes, as his thoughts catch up and he realizes just what Michael is talking about. He hadn’t thought of any of what had happened with the other Powers as _sex_ per se, but he also supposes none of them had anything quite as near a human form as Michael seems to have, as abstract as its is. He knows where it got the wrong idea, if it truly has access to what has happened in this place, if it knows just how he had writhed and begged and come. 

“Are you asking? That seems...new.” None of the others had asked; he’d all but blinked and found himself in their clutches as soon as he’d had the thought to give in. 

“It seems choices are the order of the day.” If it’s possible for a voice as distorted as Michael’s to sound disinterested, the way it does sends a chill through Jon’s blood as he suddenly _needs_ Michael to be interested, to get as close to knowing what unity with the Spiral is like. The fear of not knowing, of never knowing jangles through him, as his mind refuses to supply him with the knowledge, despite the fact that he is actively _trying_ at this point, didn’t even know he wanted to try. He finds himself stepping forward, moving towards Michael, the curiosity about what it feels like to be twisted out of shape driving him. A part deep in the back of his mind knows he shouldn’t wonder, shouldn’t feel desperate to know, but it’s quickly consumed by the lust for knowledge.

He makes his choice and steps forward.

There’s something that might be called a smile on Michael’s face, a slash in the rough place a mouth would be that curves up at the edges or perhaps that’s just the way the thing tears. But regardless of what it is, Jon is so focused on defining it he misses Michael’s hand rising to his face. He does nothing to guard against it, lets it trace its hand over his cheek. The motions are delicate, even though he can feel them cut deeply, feel them part the skin down to the muscle. He is not sure what is real in this place, what will carry over, if it will scar, or if the true scars will never surface. What he does know is that he is nothing but flesh, knows that he can be taken apart and remade, so does not resist as Michael leans in and licks up the side of his cheek, its touch cold and dry, nothing like a human tongue. It crackles slightly, like he has applied peroxide to the gash. He lets the sensation sink into him, lets it carry through his blood as he braces himself.

It’s nothing like he expected, trying to cling desperately to the edge of awareness, trying to categorize and make sense of a completely nonsensical remaking. As Michael sinks into him, there’s nothing so simple as penetration or stimulation, but there’s a sensation that feels like pleasure anyway. There are words, ones he vaguely recognizes as his own, overlaid with what sounds like a tape recorder. He’s saying, “more” and “deeper” and “please”, and soon he is overwhelmed. He can’t tell where he ends and Michael begins or even where the air around them does. They are everything at once and he holds to that feeling as he lets go, shouts and comes with a body he no longer inhabits. He can feel Michael doing something, a foreign sensation he knows he will try over and over again to recreate in his mind and will never replicate, and it almost makes him come again. 

They drift.

When he comes to, Jon is alone. There is no sign of Michael, save for the door in front of him that is still ajar. Jon has all his clothes, perfectly in place, but his body feels sluggish, slow to respond, as if he is relearning the shape of it. But somewhere in the back of his mind is the knowledge of how to pull it back together. Slowly, he stands, staring at the door and waiting to see if Michael will reappear. There’s nothing from the darkness, no creeping limbs, not even the sense that there is something waiting there for him. He feels watched, but that is nothing new, nothing he can separate from the background of his life now.

He watches the door for a moment more before he reaches forward to close it. He still doesn’t know how much of it was real, if any of it was, or if the classification of “real” or not even matters at this point. He feels different, settled in his skin for the first time since waking up in this place and as he registers this, dawn starts to break on the endless horizon. 

As he turns towards it, his eyes glance over the spider webs in the corners of the jamb of the door, too focused on what is ahead of him to assign them any significance.

He nods and takes a step forward and as he does, he thinks he hears Michael’s voice or perhaps it is just his imagination trying to mollify him.

“Good luck, Archivist. You’ll likely need it.”


End file.
